


The bridges you burn

by Redpandalavellan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, POV Alistair (Dragon Age), POV Warden (Dragon Age), oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24978496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redpandalavellan/pseuds/Redpandalavellan
Summary: A few oneshots about my warden Elgar Mahariel
Relationships: Male Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Morrigan/Male Warden (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 3





	1. Burn

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be adding more as I write them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elgar came to clan Sabrae after a tragedy some years ago, but never felt welcomed  
> Now another tragedy forces him to leave.

"The child who is not embraced by the clan will burn it down to feel the warmth."

He couldn't remember in which of Hahren Paivel's tales he had heard the phrase, but as he stood by the campfire, a cacophony of voices surrounding him, he couldn't help but wish that a stray spark would leap from the fire and set the aravels ablaze.  
The others were singing, haunting melodies that overlapped and assaulted his ears, wavering in tone and tune as tears interrupted the music. What good were their songs to him? They had sung like this too at his parents’ funeral, but it hadn't brought them back, hadn't purged the memory from his mind of his mother standing in front of him, blood pooling in the dirt as her eyes turned glassy and vacant.  
That time there'd been a body to bury. Did it make it easier? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure about anything anymore.

Ever since he'd come to clan Sabrae, Tamlen had been the only one who understood him. The little boy who smiled and dried his tears while the adults frowned and told him to be strong. The teenager who had taken his side when he shouted and raged, stood up for him when everyone else wanted to condemn him. The young man who had covered for him each time he slipped away from his duties, helping shield him from the ire of the keeper. "Because that's what friends do." He had said.  
They laughed together, the only one who ever truly made him laugh. They hunted together and travelled together and if Sylaise would have allowed it Elgar would have spent their lives together.  
Tamlen never looked twice at him though. Not like that, not the way he wanted him to. Tamlen was his best friend and not a hair more and that longing had followed him for years, burning in him until he thought he would burst from the strain.  
And now there was nothing left.  
If this was love he didn't want it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched, hand flying to the hilt of his sword until he turned and saw a pair of gloved hands raised appeasingly in the darkness.  
The shemlen that had saved him.  
"I don't wish to be insensitive, but it's time for us to go. We must make haste if we are to reach Ostagar in time."  
Elgar didn't know where that was, or why they were travelling there, but he really didn't care.  
The man promised a cure for the sickness in his blood, and there was nothing left for him here, not with Tamlen gone. The clan wouldn't say it, but he was sure they would be glad to see the back of him too. He could see it in their eyes, they blamed him, wished it was him the mirror had taken and not Tamlen.  
Perhaps he wished it too.  
If Duncan wanted him to go and fight darkspawn then he would take his pleasure in eradicating their stain from the world. They would burn for what they had taken from him, if he had to kill every last one of them himself.

They stood by the edge of camp, as people came and said their goodbyes.  
Ashalle pressed a bag into his hands, imploring him to stay safe and eat well, telling him she had packed anything he might need. Food, clothes, spare bow strings, even some poultices and bandages. In truth he needed none of it, nothing mattered to him except the armour he wore and the weapons on his back, but she looked as if she had been crying so he nodded and accepted the bag without complaint.  
She continued to speak, but he found himself instead watching the rest of the clan packing their things into the aravels and preparing the halla for the move. He would miss the halla, more than anything else. They were proud, and strong. They bowed to nobody, not slaves like the shems’ horses, but allies who always treated him far more kindly than any of his peers. He wondered if he would ever see a halla again, if his life was now to be filled only with filthy cities and loud shemlen.

He brought his attention back to the woman in front of him and found Ashalle gone and Merrill stood in her place. She looked nervous, and sad, and he found himself more surprised than before. She had always done nothing but reprimand him for disobeying the keepers orders, and yet now she claimed to be sad to see him go.  
They didn't care, not really, none of them did.  
"You belong to more than yourself." That was what Paivel always said, while reprimanding him for fighting or straying far from camp. They didn't care about him, only the fact that he was dalish, that he was needed to serve the clan. They wouldn't miss him, they would miss his sword, his bow, his blood. Even Ashalle only used him to replace the child she couldn't have on her own.  
But his blood was tainted now, no longer of use to them. It was time to go.

The man cleared this throat pointedly, and Elgar nodded, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He gave one last look at the clan, the people and things that had been his life for over a decade, and he turned and followed the shem out into the trees.  
The man didn't try to speak to him, for which he was grateful, having no energy nor desire to make small talk with a stranger, still unable to put Tamlen's scream out of his mind.  
But as the hours stretched on, and his clan became just a speck of light swallowed in the distance by growing darkness, another phrase came to him.  
Perhaps he listened to the Hahrens tales more attentively than he realised, still not so attentively as to put a name to the tale, but attentively enough that it followed him into the night as they walked away from camp, away from the only life he had ever known.

"May the bridges you burn light the way forward."


	2. Forbidden magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elgar makes a tough choice, and in the aftermath his past comes back to haunt him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I had more to post about this guy but since he's new the oneshots will kind of jump around a bit whenever I get the inspiration - sorry!

Elgar had never been quite so thankful to rid himself of his armour at the end of the day.  
He had always trained hard to fight, the greatsword he had traded for with the shemlen never far from his reach, his hardened leather armour more a second skin to him than his clothes. The keeper had often said it was his only virtue, that at least the rage he held could be put towards protecting the clan from outsiders when needed.  
But while the chain shirt he had acquired in that human village offered sturdier protection than his old leather plates, it was also heavier, and didn't fit him half as well, leading to uncomfortable chafing by the end of the day. Were all shemlen really so freakishly tall?  
Still, a bit of raw skin and a couple of bruises was far above a sword to the abdomen, and after the day they'd had, he'd been lucky to escape with just that.

With his armour and weaponry discarded, leaving him just in his travelling clothes, he picked out some food from his bag and left that too in his hastily erected tent. It was a far cry from the hot meal he craved, but nobody really felt like cooking right now.  
Alistair still sulked, sharpening his sword outside his own tent with a brooding expression. A part of Elgar almost wondered if he should be worried, the way Alistair had blown up at him when they returned to camp, accusing him of not trying hard enough, of making the wrong decision, and now paying such attention to his weapon and looking murderous. The shem didn't have the balls to attack him though, Elgar knew that much.  
He took his food and headed straight for Morrigan's small fire, separate from the rest of them. He respected her privacy, usually wishing to sleep away from the main group, but right now her company was much more desirable to him than anything else, and he was grateful for the distance between him and the others.

She didn't look up as he approached, but he didn't feel ignored, in fact appreciating her quiet acceptance of his presence as he sat down by her fire. Neither spoke, not at first, until she glanced over to the main camp.  
"The two of you managed to avoid coming to blows then? I admit I thought I was to watch you fighting in the dirt. Men."  
She rolled her eyes as she spoke, words filled with as much derision as she could muster, but it would take harsher criticisms than that to offend him.  
"He doesn't have the guts to fight me, he just wishes to whine about the decisions I make while refusing to make any of his own."  
The frustration in his words surprised even himself, not noticing how much the man's attitude had been grating on him until it had all come to a head.  
"Whining does seem to be his singular talent, 'tis true."   
She spoke flippantly, her disdain for him already made clear long before now, but Elgar only replied with a noncommittal grunt. On another night he might have defended him, might have commented on his skill with a blade or his determination against the Blight, but not now. Not with his anger still so fresh.

For a few seconds the exchange of words came to a standstill, and Elgar expected to spend the remainder of the evening stewing in silence, until Morrigan suddenly spoke up once more.  
"What exactly does he object to? He said it himself, the child was an abomination, he had to be destroyed."  
It was unusual for Morrigan to be the one to spark further conversation, but maybe she could sense his retained anger and was attempting to give the opportunity for him to get it out of his system. Whatever the reason, perhaps a chance to complain about Alistair was exactly what he needed.  
"He is uncomfortable with what must be done. He sees me as a monster that killed a child, but the child was no longer there. It was a demon, nothing more."  
The thought made his skin crawl, gripping tightly onto his own arms and turning his head away. One second it had been a young human boy stood in front of him, the next a full grown demon intent on their destruction. The fact that it could happen to any mage was enough to make his blood run cold, and the fact that Alistair had the gall to berate him for putting a stop to it made it boil. Wasn't he supposed to be a templar? Didn't he know the dangers of out of control magic? He had heard that shems were even stricter on magic than his own people, but it didn't seem to hold true.

"Well, not that I disagree with your actions, but 'twas not truly the case. You saw as well as I, the child occasionally had control. 'Tis not the case in full possession, where the mage ceases to be in favour of the abomination."  
She spoke with detachment, but he only frowned and muttered a quiet reply.  
"Believe me, I know."  
She looked at him askance but he avoided her gaze in favour of the ground between his feet, chewing deliberately on his food to avoid having to speak or even acknowledge her unsaid questions.  
The former silence returned, Morrigan clearly not forward enough to push the matter any further, but after a few short seconds he started again, eyes still firmly fixed on the soil beneath him.

"I told you my mother was killed?"  
He began slowly, the words unfamiliar, and she turned her head and listened without comment.  
"My father was a mage, Keeper of our clan. He spent all his time investigating the old magics, trying to discover things our ancestors had lost."  
He wished he had his sword to hand, the feel of solid steel in his grip always managing to ground him, feeling so much deadlier than the ironbark weapons the craftsmen tried to press upon him. But it laid across the camp in his tent, and he was left dragging his fingers through the dirt at his feet instead, picking at the grass to have something to do with his hands rather than ball them into fists.  
"He delved too deep, found more than he could handle. He became an abomination, slaughtered most of the clan before Marethari put him down. My mother died protecting me from him."  
He had never really spoken of it before. Everyone in the clan already knew what had happened, he could always see it in their eyes, the pity and the shame. Even Tamlen had tiptoed around the topic, careful never to bring it up or speak of them around him, as if he were so fragile the mere mention might break him.  
He hated all of it.

It took a few seconds for him to notice that Morrigan was staring at him, and as she saw him returning to the present moment and turning to meet her gaze she quickly turned her head away once more.  
"As I said before, I... am sorry, for what it's worth. Though I'm sure it means little."  
Her words were sympathetic, as everyone's words always were, and as usual it didn't make him feel any better. Platitudes did nothing for him, but he at least found himself appreciative that she recognised that, that she didn't expect a few sweet words to simply erase his past from him.  
"Forgotten magic like that leads to little but ruin. It was only a matter of time before the child succumbed. Even if there'd been a chance... I couldn't allow another massacre to take place while we trailed all the way to the circle on a hope."  
She refrained from arguing his point as before, but instead raised an eyebrow at his words.  
"Oh? How quickly he changes his tune. Was it simply platitudes you spoke when you said you valued my abilities then? An attempt to keep my favour?"  
Her tone became hard to read, part amusement and part anger as she frowned at him, and he hastened to explain himself before she got the wrong idea.  
"What? No. Your magic is nothing like that, I've seen the things you do, they're amazing."  
She paused, seemingly thrown off beat by the compliment, echoing his words with soft hesitation.  
"Amazing?"

Maybe it was the stress. The heightened emotions of the day, the adrenaline still simmering in his system, the natural defensiveness that came with being misunderstood. But as he looked over at her, his heart raced.  
She was beautiful, and she was wild, that much had been obvious from the second they had met in the Korcari Wilds outside Ostagar. Human though she may be, he didn't consider her a shem. He had never met anyone even amongst his own people that truly embraced the forests like she did, the way she could transform into any manner of beast, stalking through the trees as if she truly belonged there. There was power in her every movement, her every word. She didn't shrink herself for the world, instead daring it to face her as she was, head unbowed.  
It was mesmerising, and in the moment he found himself mesmerised by the careful curve of her face and the dark make up around her startling yellow eyes.

"Can I... ask you something personal?" He ventured suddenly, a hundred questions of his own buzzing behind his lips. About her life in the wilds, her brief forays into towns and cities over the years. If she'd ever felt as detached as he did from other people, ever felt as superior. If she'd ever watched someone from afar with such longing, ever broken and invited them closer.  
"Well we are in camp. 'Tis as good a time as any."  
She met his eyes and his heart sped up further, hammering in his chest as if the sight of her looking into his eyes would be enough to kill him where he sat. Was there a ghost of a blush on her cheeks as he studied them? Or was he imagining things he wished to see, his mind making patterns in her mannerisms to fuel his own ego.  
He couldn't decide. But as he sat there, just for a moment, the memory of another face played behind his eyelids. A soft smile and the gentle black lines of Mythal, so painfully familiar that he felt the void again in his chest, words abandoning him in his weakness.  
So as he found his eyes caught on the deep purple of her lips, he abandoned words entirely, giving into his impulses and leaning in towards her.

She seemed to recoil and he paused, suddenly afraid he had misread everything up to this point, retreating only slightly so his face still hovered centimetres from her own.  
"What's this? 'Tis a rather odd discussion you seem to desire, leaning in so closely."  
"Do you object?"  
He was almost afraid of the answer, past the point of no return and hurtling towards embarrassment, but he needn't have expended the energy.  
"Not unless you stop."  
His hand came up to cup her jaw as he closed the final distance, his lips meeting hers and finally, blessedly, blocking out all else. There was no thought of blood rituals or abominations, no violence and struggle, only a beautiful woman and the moonlight above as he felt her own hands roam higher and entwine themselves in his hair.  
This was a different kind of magic, one he was happy to indulge in to its fullest effect, for as long as she would have him.


	3. Mirror Images

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than a decade has passed since Alistair left the Grey Warden order, but here he stands, a chance to die for them once more

The sharp, pincer-like leg hit him in the chest and he went down, hitting the floor with a thud. Although honestly in a place like this, it could just have easily been the ceiling or the wall.  
The blow wasn't fatal, it barely dented his chestplate, but as he laid with his head on the jagged stone and the angry demon looming above him, he found himself not even trying to stand.  
Everything hurt.  
He felt the squelch of blood filling his boot from cuts on his leg, his shield arm felt dislocated if not broken, barely able to protect him now, and his helmet had flown off hours ago. Or was it seconds?  
Time didn't pass properly here, each moment blurring into the next until all he knew was the weight of his sword in his hand and the screeches of the creature in front of him.  
Or now above him, as his weapon skittered carefully out of reach.  
He saw the creature rearing up, and he knew he should move, pick up his sword. But instead he closed his eyes.  
It was over, and he knew it. He'd bought the Inquisitor and Hawke enough time to escape, seal the rift behind them and protect the forces outside, but he could never hope to win.  
It was better than he deserved, considering everything that had happened. A hero's death.

A clang of metal rang out, and he opened his eyes.  
A heavily armoured figure stood above him, a large greatsword grasped in both hands, holding the creature's claws at bay.  
"Get up!" He growled, and the shock was enough to break Alistair's serenity and send him scrabbling for his weapon once more.  
He picked up his sword, his injured shield arm still hanging limply by his side, and as he stood and turned he couldn't quite believe that his eyes agreed with his ears.  
An elven man stood in full plate, a shimmering enchanted greatsword held aloft as he swung it in a wide arc, digging deep into the demon's flesh. His hair was longer, shaved on one side and braided on the other, and he was noticeably older. But the deep blue vallaslin across his forehead was the same, and the grey warden crest was fixed prominently to his plate. It was unmistakably Elgar Mahariel.

The shock only took seconds to wear off, and by then the melancholy had gone with it, his instincts back in full force screaming at him to stay alive. So he listened, falling back into habits years old as he stood by the elven man's side against the demon before them. And despite everything that had happened in the years since, it really did feel just like old times. The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder against some magical horror with nothing but a few scraps of steel between them and returning to the Maker, or the beyond as Elgar would have said.  
He saw Elgar execute a vicious attack, a templar attack, an attack that Alistair had taught him, before turning and fixing him with a scowl that told him in no uncertain terms that he should be focusing more on the demon than his companions.

He turned back to trading blows with the giant creature for a few stretched moments, the presence of other people somehow helping to correct his warped sense of time, until a flash from behind him made him freeze and spin around, where he saw the second familiar face from his past in as many minutes.  
Morrigan stood on a rise not too far away, staff in hand as she directed bolts of lighting towards the creature and offered the occasional shout of warning to Elgar grappling with its claws below.  
She had always been powerful, but here she looked positively primal, bending the very fabric of the fade around them aseasily as he swung his sword.  
He didn't have time though, to wonder about their sudden appearance, only throwing himself once more into fervent battle, before Elgar had the opportunity to berate him again.  
Until finally, the beast lay dead before them.

"It's been some time."  
Elgar turned to address him once they had both caught their breath, his sword point lightly grazing the ground below as it hung from one hand, the other extended towards him in an uncharacteristic friendly gesture.  
Alistair wasn't impressed.  
"And what's this supposed to be? Temptation? Hope?" He announced to the fade at large, sure the demon could hear him from wherever it was hiding. "You picked the wrong memory."  
The image of Elgar seemed taken aback for a moment, before shaking his head and reaching out to clasp Alistair on the arm as Morrigan approached to stand beside him.  
"I'm no trick of the fade Alistair."  
Alistair shrugged off the touch and stared hard at the figures in front of him, trying to decide which of his senses to trust, if any. Eventually he decided that nowhere was worse than here, and he really had nothing to lose at this point by playing along.

"Then... what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were dead. Disappeared while searching for Morrigan." He glanced between the two of them. "I suppose you found her."  
Elgar smiled, his own eyes finding Morrigan's for a moment and conveying something silent between them, before he returned his attention to Alistair.  
"That I did. We came to rescue you. I heard of what you did, offering to stay behind. I thought it about time I began to make things up to you."  
Alistair scowled.  
"Oh really? You had a sudden change of heart did you? Decided you'd make up for betraying me at the landsmeet with a dashing rescue? Always the hero."  
His words were bitter, a lifetime's resentment simmering under the surface, everything he'd ranted alone at the walls in the years since.  
Elgar scowled in return, an expression that Alistair found much more realistic.  
"You told me once the wardens weren't heroes. That we did whatever it took to defeat the darkspawn, no matter how extreme. It's not my fault I was the only one who meant it."

Here it was finally before him, the confrontation he'd spent years thinking about, the unsaid words tearing themselves through his mind on lonely nights.  
Somehow it didn't feel as satisfying.  
"I thought we were friends you know. I stood by and watched all the things you did in the name of defeating the blight, becuase you told me it was necessary, because we were in it together against the world."  
He shook his head angrily.  
"All you wanted was power, your own personal revenge for some slight, and you didn't care who you trampled to get it."  
He pushed an armoured finger into the elf's chest, but Elgar only scoffed, not intimidated in the least.  
"So you run off to the free marches? Drink Kirkwall dry to drown your sorrows?"

Then the shame followed. He didn't know how Elgar had known, but he supposed it didn't matter. He was right. He had run away, abandoned his duty to the wardens in his rage. The blight had been finished without him, Loghain hailed as a hero for sacrificing himself to end it. The thought made his blood boil, the man who had betrayed them all raised high, and him exiled as a traitor. But another part of him hated himself for it too. For giving up, turning his back when Fereldan's need had never been greater. The blight had been ended without him, but he should have stayed to make sure of it, no matter how he felt.  
That was the oath he had taken. The promise he had made to Duncan.  
So he turned to the drink, to pretend he could be someone else just for a few hours. Anyone other than the disgrace he had turned out to be.  
It had taken him a long time to feel himself again, after Teagan had dragged him home from some shitty bar and hidden any bottle he could find. It had been a hard road, but he was a warden again, raising his sword in defense of his country the way he should have done all along.

And surprisingly enough, as he raised his head Elgar looked ashamed too, pausing for a few beats before looking Alistair square in the eyes once more, his expression torn.  
"Look. This isn't why I came here."  
"Then why are you here?"  
The elf opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, frowning as he averted his eyes once more and struggled to find his words.  
"I... wanted to apologise. Some of the things I did... You were right, I went too far. I was angry and I took it out on the world in   
the name of fighting the blight."  
Alistair paused, still wondering if this was all some strange fade nightmare. Though if this was how demons spent their time, he suspected they could stand to get better hobbies.  
"I'll admit I never expected to hear that."  
Alistair muttered, and Elgar sighed, looking as if the effort required to say the words were causing him physical strain as he lifted his gaze to Alistair's.  
"I can't change the past, but I hear you've returned to the order. That makes us brothers again.... if you want it."

The elf was watching him expectantly, an uncomfortable hesitancy that Alistair had never seen in him, and a hand outstretched for him to take.  
A decade ago he would have taken it without question, the armour they shared more than enough for him. Half a decade ago he would have spat at him, thrown a bottle, slurred his way through a series of profanities.  
But now he just looked at it, caught somewhere between old histories and new possibilities.  
He couldn't take it, not yet, but he looked back at Elgar with half a smile.  
"Let's just get out of this hellhole."  
Elgar paused, and then smiled, withdrawing his hand and motioning for Alistair to follow him as Morrigan lead the trek back to whatever portal would lead them out of the fade.

It was a start.


End file.
